Feral Blood and Domestic Ties
by crazychika03
Summary: Ratchet had been plagued with odd dreams and nightmares for moths, until one day the Universe used serval strings of murders answer the reason behind the dreams. Now Ratchet has to yet again go on another rescue mission, only this time when it's all over, he'll be need to make a choice.
1. Nightmares and Strange sightings

_Location: Meridian City, Igliak_

_Time: 10:55 A.M July 10th 3025_

Ratchet kept tossing and turning being plagued by the same dream every single night, it was always the same; Ratchet found in himself in a strange marsh environment with mist covering the air, as he got to his feet Ratchet was quick to realize that didn't have any cloths on! But oddly enough he wasn't worried about that... He was more concerned about where he was, which he would have thought he would have worried about being naked but his instincts kept telling him '_find the others! Find the clan!' _which he did; he march forward unsure of where he was going or what was going on, he just ran straight ahead of him.

_"Ratchet?! BABY! WHERE ARE YOU!? SON!" _came a sudden voice, it was an older female voice.

Ratchet whirled around trying to find the source of the voice,

_"HELLO! WHERE ARE YOU?! ... CAN YOU TELL ME WHO YOU ARE?!" _he'd call out, but no answer.

"_WHO ARE YOU!?" _he'd yell again and no response, suddenly a small cat the size of serval with the same markings as a lombax and the little fluff on the end of the tail would go zipping past his feet, then suddenly another and another and another one!

_'What are those things?!' _he muttered to himself, suddenly out of pure instinct he began to follow them.

"_Hey come back! Where are you going?!" _he called to them with nobody responding to him, he didn't seem to even care! He just kept following! Then they'd stop, Ratchet would come to a complete halt and nearly tripped over his own two feet, it seemed that there was a meeting taking place, as the other cats sat on their haunches and stared up at a large female of the same species, as she sat her feet she formed into a lombaxian. Ratchet's ears fell back and mouth fell open, how that be?! What's was going on here?! It's... It just couldn't be!

She formed into a thin female lombax with a short tail that nearly bobbed, she wore a blue halo-flux armor and had short hair cut that masculine but still had a feminine feel to it. She was probably in her later 40's or early 50's, ears pierced as they fell back. She stood tall and proud, her piercing blue eyes fell upon Ratchet and she smiled warmly and walked down to him.

'_My son, my sweet beautiful young son! My how you've grown into a proud young heroic male, just like you're father.' _She said stroking his hair, her facial expression softened as she wrapped her arms around his neck, Ratchet didn't know what to make of this and hugged her back confused.

'_Did she say son?' _he thought, '_Who is this woman?!' _he thought to himself; and just as suddenly as the dream had appeared, it was suddenly over with a loud thud to the floor as he had fallen off of the bed from all the rustling and rolling around.

Ratchet sat up rubbing his head groggy with the blanket tangled around his body, he looked over on the far edge of the bed and spotted his underwear. He groaned lifting himself off the floor and tossing aside the blanket that had managed to tangle itself on his body, "That's the third time this week! And three months this has been going on! What's the deal!?" He asked himself as he put on his underwear and left the room for a cup of coffee.

He plopped down in the bar set as he circled his finger around the cup looking down into the full cup of coffee quickly becoming lost in his thoughts, he thought of how much things had changed, how he wished things could were different ... How he wished he wasn't so alone in the universe. Oh sure! He had his friends, so he wasn't totally alone but ever since Azimuth died, the feeling had started being ebbing at him more and more; he let out a heavy sigh, though as of late life had been changing so suddenly for the duo and their friends.

Talwyn had gotten a job working with some treasure hunters, they weren't really treasure hunters just historians looking for artifacts and when they would find a lombaxian artifact they would always somehow end up the outpost and Talwyn was just tired of them disrupting her peace so she went with them to kind of keep them off of her back. Kronk and Zephyr had gone off a veterans retreat to help them relax and calm down, Clank meanwhile had gone back to the Great Clock to try to help Sigmund out where he could so he was usually gone quit a bit, and to help keep himself busy Ratchet had opened his own mechanic shop in Polaris; but lately he'd just started feeling lonesome, he'd even have some days where he'd break down and go see what Qwark was up to just to escape the lonesomeness, but it didn't do much good since all Qwark ever did was drone on and on about his accomplishments.

And so now Ratchet sat at the bar in his kitchen sipping on his coffee and before trying on with the rest of the day.

_Location: Great Clock _

_Time: 1:15 same day and year. _

Clank had just finished restoring time anomalies on the Fastoon ruins when he came walking out of the repair chamber, head held high and proud; he was pretty pleased with himself. "Perhaps I should come back as caretaker of the Great Clock, what do you think Sigmund?" he asked his friend, but had gotten no response when he realized this he turned around to see Sigmund looking intently at a pink jewel in his hands.

Curious about what his friend was looking at he went over him to get a better look, "Sigmund? What have you gotten there?" he asked standing on his tip toes, Sigmund quickly turned his attention to the little robot and showed him the gem in his hand. "What I have here is a pink sapphire, it's very rare, I've heard all kinds of stories of how healers used these to tell the future and to help lombaxes who couldn't remember major events or people ... I don't know if they can actually use them to _heal _others or not though." Sigmund said almost becoming enchanted with gem again, Clank glanced up at the cleaner bot almost enchanted himself.

"What do you mean Sigmund?" Clank asked quizzically, suddenly it seemed to occur to Sigmund what he'd just said and thus caused him to freak out and snatch up the gem from Clank's grasp. "Nothing! I've already said too much! I've uuhh gotta go take care of some of the zoni! AAAHHHH!" and having said that Sigmund had darted away into the distance, all Clank could do was raise a brow and shake his head giggling. "Oh well, I suppose I had best go check over the chamber and make sure everything is functioning properly." Clank said to himself as he made his way to the chamber.

'_I must admit that was rather odd of Sigmund to just dart away like that. He hasn't done that for months and now he's suddenly fearful of telling me information related to the lombaxes? Something is not right here...' _he thought to himself when suddenly an alarm had started going off. Clank rolled his eyes seemingly a little annoyed as he headed off to shut off the alarm, figures it was probably one of the zoni causing trouble with the alarm system; yesh! What is it with the zoni and getting into stuff like this, honestly?! Couldn't they stay out of trouble with the alarm system for a few minutes? Well he had to give them credit, they stayed out of trouble long enough for him to fix a few time anomalies so he couldn't be _TOO _upset with them. After all they were just curious about a few of the things that were put into place recently, oh well it was generally an easy fix that didn't take too long.

So that's why Clank found it even stranger when he had made it to the Orvus Chamber, where the alarm could be located, and found that it hadn't been tampered with. Concerned he raced toward it trying to figure out what could be the problem now, he checked the scanners and a few of the bio-scans to see what it was that be causing all this trouble! The screen quickly flipped onto a security camera that had been placed on a remote planet. "Planet...Inajia? But, that can not be!? That planet was said not to be inhabited! Wait.. What is that?! ... I must inform Ratchet!" Clank said as he darted about the chamber trying to quickly in touch with Ratchet.


	2. Solving Mysteries

_Location: Planet Igliak_

_Time: 1:30 PM same day and year _

Ratchet had finally gotten a chance to go on lunch break, when he plopped down in office eating his usual order of burger and fries from Galaxy Burger when suddenly a call came in from the Great Clock. _'The Clock?! Oh boy! I wonder what Clank's up to?' _he thought to himself as he answered the call, "Talk to me!" he hollered taking a huge bit out of his burger, "Ratchet! This is urgent! I need you to go a planet called Inajia and do some investigation!" Clank said urgently, Ratchet looked over at him with his eyes narrow with a curious look on his face as he finished taking a bit out of his food; Clank's attention swiftly went to the security screen of Inajia. "Oh my! What's... Oh...My..." Clank trailed off as he watched on in horror of what was taking place on the screen hand over his mouth and eyes wide.

A large cragimite was brutally killed, chunks of fur and flesh being torn apart and sent flying, as one ripped at the creature's jugular ripping his throat and wind pipe out - only to bit it in half thus ending his life -and with that the attack was over, he continued watching as the Cragimite was ripped into shreds, with large globs of blood, intestines and other organs being torn out as the odd creatures gorged on the bug like creature.

"Ratchet! You need to hurry to and make yourself ready! Get in your halo-flux armor and load your weapons! " Clank said urgently.

"I knew something odd had been taking place on that planet for months! But...This is...Horrible!" Clank said not once taking his eyes off of the screen, "Clank? Clank what's going on?! What's happening!?" Ratchet said trying to peer through the screen to see what was happening. He could barely see what was happening on the screen that Clank was watching, "Ratchet come and meet me at the Clock and I will inform on the way, please come quickly!" Clank said and with that the little robot had jumped off of the screen, Ratchet sat wondering just what was that Clank witnessed, that had gotten him all worked up like he was?! Either way if it was urgent enough to get Clank rilled up, it was certainly enough for him.

_Location: The Great Clock_

_Time: 5:36 PM July 11th 3025 _

Even with the hyper drive it still took some time getting to the clock, but wasting no time in typical fashion, Ratchet had landed his ship and darted off towards the Orvus chamber.

_'I hope I'm not too late, I tried to motor as fast as I could but that's kinda hard to do when you've got the Galactic police troopers posted all over the major routes! At any rate I'm here now, may as well see what Clank needs.' _he thought to himself, deactivating his hoover boots and landing on the floor, he knocked a quick little beat on the door and waited for Clank to appear.

**_SWOOSH!_**

The door flew open in a nanosecond and there stood Clank beaming up at him more then happy to see his best friend in the universe! "Hello Ratchet, and how have you been?" he said walking out of the chamber towards Ratchet's ship nonchalantly as if he hadn't just witnessed murder, the young lombax watched puzzled as the little robot walked towards the ship and he quickly followed behind Clank. "So Clank, what's the problem?" he asked trying to catch up with him. "For the last three months there have been a string of murders on Inajia, I wasn't sure of what was causing the murders but now I may have a theory. I have been doing some research on lombaxes." he began to explain as he climbed into the ship, "Wait... Lombaxes?! What did you find out?! Are there any living in this dimension?!" Ratchet said nearly demanding the information out of him, Clank looked at him a little startled but then again he should have remembered that Ratchet had started getting a little crazy over any information on lombaxes that may have come about.

"No.. That's.. Well, perhaps I have but I am not entirely sure. You see, I have found many accounts of feral lombaxes residing on various planets... But I am unsure if they are still ..."

"Alive? I doubt it... Tachyon may have killed them by now..." Ratchet said becoming dejected, he settled back into his seat becoming relaxed

"No... They aren't like typical lombaxes Ratchet ..."

"They're wild animals... I wouldn't expect them to be." Ratchet said as he started to mentally go on autopilot. But had Ratchet let Clank finish, he would know what they're dealing with wasn't just a typical case of '_wild animals' _this was something much more.

_Location: Inajia_

_Date: Current day and year _

_Time: 9:36 PM _

Odd large cat like creatures moved about on the large rock formation, some darted about carrying meat while others sat quietly watching or caring for young cubs, suddenly one of the cats moving about had disappeared behind a curtain of moss and vines only to end up in another room. At the top of a large plateau like rock formation sat two cat like creatures.

One a female laying down resting herself and another a male sitting on his haunches narrowing his eyes at the young one below, "Clan leaders!" he shouted urgently

"Did you find her?! Have you and your scouts found anything?!" the old male said becoming concerned, the young one shook his head back and forth indicating that whoever they had been searching for hadn't been found. The old male plopped down his arms and head hanging over the plateau, the female didn't seem too concerned as she remained in the same position as she had been found when the young male scout had entered, "Call your scouts back to the den." she said as she opened her eyes revealing her once dazzling blue eyes now dull and clouded from cataracts, she sat starring out of a window watching as dark storm clouds gathered together. "I a storm is approaching." she said, the scout looked at her worried about what she'd said, "But clan mother..."

"I said call them back! She will be alright, she always is." she said looking down to the scout and with that, he was gone.

"Kaden... You should know better by now, she doesn't disappear without a trace. We know where she's gone and that she'll either find shelter or come home, she'll be just fine my dear. Besides oh '_great dimension keeper' _you and I both know everything will be okay." she said as she nuzzled her mate in an attempt to calm him, Kaden sat on his haunches with his body becoming more and more stiff and unrelaxed. "What if something happens to her? What if she does disappear or becomes trapped somewhere or she gets hurt or worse! A cragimite ..."

"Kaden! She has _**YOU'RE**_ intelligence and _**MY** _instincts, just like her big brother who saved galaxies time and time again, she will be okay."

"I know I just... I can't lose her ..." he said, his body becoming more relaxed as he became somewhat dejected just thinking about something terrible that seemed to give him heartache. "Besides, we know her brother is safe and sound. He wouldn't have made it so far in life, if he wasn't so smart and quick wit like his father before him." she said still continually nuzzling him, Kaden finally gave in and began to nuzzle her back.


End file.
